24 Hours in Ancient Athens: A Day in the Life of the People Who Lived There

By Philip Matyszak

Spend 24 hours with the ancient Athenians. See the city through their eyes as it teeters on the edge of the fateful war that would end its golden age.

Athens, 416 BC. A tenuous peace holds. The city-state's political and military might are feared throughout the ancient world; it pushes the boundaries of social, literary and philosophical experimentation in an era when it has a greater concentration of geniuses per capita than at any other time in human history. Yet even geniuses go to the bathroom, argue with their spouse and enjoy a drink with friends.

Few of the city's other inhabitants enjoy the benefits of such a civilized society, though - as multicultural and progressive as Athens can be, many are barred from citizenship. No, for the average person, life is about making ends meet, whether that be selling fish, guarding the temple or smuggling lucrative Greek figs.

During the course of a day we meet 24 Athenians from all strata of society - from the slave-girl to the councilman, the vase painter to the naval commander, the housewife to the hoplite - and get to know what the real Athens was like by spending an hour in their company. We encounter a different one of these characters every chapter, with each chapter forming an hour in the life of the ancient city. We also get to spy on the daily doings of notable Athenians through the eyes of regular people as the city hovers on the brink of the fateful war that will destroy its golden age.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael O'Mara
• Release date: Apr 18, 2019
• ISBN: 9781782439776

Philip Matyszak

Dr Philip Matyszak has a doctorate in Roman history from St John's College, Oxford, and is the author of a number of acclaimed books on the ancient world, including 24 Hours in Ancient Athens and 24 Hours in Ancient Rome, published by Michael O'Mara Books, which have been translated into over fifteen languages. He currently works as a tutor for Madingley Hall Institute of Continuing Education at the University of Cambridge, teaching a course on Ancient Rome. He lives in British Columbia, Canada.

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INTRODUCTION

Welcome to Athens in 416 BC. The month is Elaphebolion, just before the theatrical festival of the Great Dionysia (early April). At this time, the urban population of Athens is around 30,000, with a greater concentration of geniuses per square foot than at any other time in human history.

As the city hovers on the brink of the fateful war that will destroy its golden age, we spend twenty-four hours with regular Athenians who occasionally encounter some of the city’s great men – not as paragons of intellectual ability but as people with very human concerns. After all, geniuses spend little time being geniuses. Mostly they are normal people who go to the bathroom, argue with their spouses and enjoy a drink with friends.

In most ancient texts we meet the ordinary people of Athens only when they interact with the city’s exceptional characters. This book turns this around, so that we only meet the geniuses of Athens when they interact with ordinary citizens going about their daily business.

Where a chapter of this book is not based on archaeological reconstruction, it is usually a contemporary text repackaged and presented from the perspective of an ordinary Athenian. Where a chapter has thus been rewritten, I have indicated where the original is to be found.

Some of the reconstructions are speculative, although based on the best research now available. Every hour of a day in the life of these Athenians is designed to capture – preferably in the very words of those same Athenians – their experience of living in this extraordinary, dynamic, brilliant and amoral city at the very peak of its greatness.

Today, in the spring of 416, Athens is enjoying an interlude of peace in the devastating Peloponnesian War of 431 to 404 BC. The first round of warfare came to an end with the Peace of Nicias, five years previously. Despite repeated Spartan attacks, which devastated the city’s farms and orchards, Athens came out of that war stronger than ever. In fact, now goaded by Alcibiades, the enfant terrible of Athenian politics, the city is contemplating the audacious invasion and conquest of Sicily.

In this frenetic atmosphere of epoch-changing innovation and political intrigue, where some of the greatest works of western civilization are being forged with the tools of slavery and imperial oppression, ordinary Athenians are trying to get on with their everyday lives in extraordinary circumstances.

This is their story.

7TH HOUR OF THE NIGHT

(00.00–01.00)

There are few atheists in Athens. Those few might change their minds if they also changed places with Pentarkes the Elean. Pentarkes is on night watch in the very heart of the Acropolis, within the Parthenon of Athena. At midnight Pentarkes is very well aware of that goddess. She is standing behind him right now.

The flickering light of the oil lamps casts the shadow of the goddess before him, so that her ornate helmet moves slightly – as if Athena tilts her head as she considers this mortal in her domain. Pentarkes is sure that her eyes, lapis lazuli blue in daylight, are now their true colour – the steel-grey of the Athenian sky just before dawn. They call her ‘the grey-eyed goddess’: sacred Athena, daughter of wisdom, goddess of the battleline.

Pentarkes turns slowly so that he first sees the goddess by her reflection in the iridescent pool of oil at her feet. Without looking up to see, he knows she is tall, nine times the height of a man, and her skin is ivory-white. A pale arm reaches out, as though offering victory as a prize. Literally so, for the goddess has transferred her golden spear to rest against her shoulder so that Nike, the embodiment of Victory, can perch on her palm.

Victory is a fickle thing, which can at any moment fly away on gilded wings, so it is reassuring to know that Athena remains forever protecting her city. Like any respectable Athenian woman, the goddess wears a peplos, a garment that hangs from the shoulder and is girdled at the waist before it falls elegantly to her ankles. A commoner’s peplos is plain, unbleached wool. An aristocratic lady might flaunt a peplos of purple linen. Only Athena, favourite of Zeus and companion of heroes, wears a peplos of pure gold.

Pentarkes steps back, the better to see the face of his goddess. She looks unusually serious tonight. Is she thinking of that day, half a lifetime ago, when she was brought to life by the hand of a genius? The divine Athena was born from the head of Zeus but the body she now inhabits, the awe-inspiring statue in this temple made specially to house her, was made by Pheidias, the greatest sculptor not just of this, but (in the highly biased opinion of Pentarkes) any other age.

The statues of Pheidias are the most perfect of their kind that has ever been seen.

CICERO DE ORATORE 2.9

Much has happened since then. But Athena remains – majestic, yet somehow approachable, magnificent in daylight, but only truly alive in the lamplight when she stands guard alongside Pentarkes.

Pentarkes first met Pheidias almost seventeen years ago, in Elis, a small city in the Peloponnese. Even as a lad Pentarkes enjoyed a certain distinction as an athlete, and was consequently welcomed into the workshop of the master sculptor. To carve the likeness of the great gods of Greece, Pheidias explained, was a privilege allowed to only a few. In Elis, the Athenian sculptor had been commissioned to produce a masterwork – a statue of the patron of the Olympic games, mighty Zeus himself. (At this time, the city of Elis was in charge of organizing the Olympics.)

Pentarkes remembers Pheidias striding back and forth in a dusty workshop littered with samples of marble, ivory and rare cedar wood. Forgetting his young visitor, Pheidias mutters to himself. ‘At the moment he passes judgement on a matter of grave importance, that’s when to show him. Grave, austere, terrifying in his majesty. Yes!’ He quotes from the Iliad:

The son of Cronus speaks, dipping his head and dark brow,

and the anointed hair of the great god

falls back from his divine head

as Olympus is shaken!¹

‘That’s it! Homer had it right. He will be sitting on his throne, and I shall make him as I did Athena, splendid in gold and ivory. On his head, a crown – no, a garland. I shall make the garland as if of shoots of the olive tree – because Athena, Goddess of the Olive, came from those very brows on which the garland rests.

‘To the Olympic champions goes the victory so I shall show him also holding Nike (Athena won’t mind, I hope). In the other hand of Zeus, a sceptre. I’ll push the committee for funds to encrust the sceptre with every kind of jewel. Atop the sceptre, well, it must be an eagle. Gold! The robe must be gold, embroidered with figures of animals, and flowers. Lilies I think. Lilies carve well.’

Lilies carved well, indeed. Twelve years after its first showing to the astonished and delighted populace of Olympia, the statue of Zeus at Olympia is now considered one of the wonders of the known world, along with the Great Pyramid at Giza and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Yet the people of Elis owe their masterpiece to Athens. Not to the greatness of Athens, but to Athens at its worst – with its petty jealousy, back-stabbing and rabble-rousing politicians.

Pheidias seems to me the only artist to truly portray Olympian Zeus. I came to see his statue with high expectations, but he far surpassed them.

L. AEMILIUS PAULLUS, CONQUEROR OF MACEDON, POLYBIUS HISTORIES 30.10

Pheidias was still a lad then, and the Persian Wars not long over. Much of Athens was still in ruins after the Persian army had occupied the city in 480 BC and done their best to wreck the place. Persian wrath had focused on the Acropolis. The fire-worshipping Persians had little use for a temple of Athena and had demolished it.

Pericles led the Athenian democracy not through any rank or elected office, but simply by the sheer strength of his personality. He decided that the Acropolis and particularly the temple of Athena would be rebuilt, and rebuilt to out-do any other building in the world. Only the best materials would be used for the new temple. The walls would be of Pentelic marble, the roof of cedar beams and gilded tiles.

The Golden Ratio

Divide a line into two parts in such a way that the long part divided by the smaller part has the same ratio as the whole line divided by the longer part. The ratio of the longer line to the shorter line is 1.618… (As with pi the digits have no end.)

The Golden Ratio is used in both art and engineering and therefore in architecture, which is art and engineering combined. The length to width of the Parthenon fits the Golden Ratio, which is no surprise as the person who discovered this ratio was Pheidias. In mathematical equations the ratio is symbolized by the Greek letter phi (Φ) – the opening letter of Pheidias’ name.

The lesser statues would be marble from the island of Paros, the finest in the known world. The statue of Athena would be the centrepiece of the temple that would be the core of the Acropolis, as the Acropolis is the heart of Athens. For such a statue, marble was inadequate. This statue would be of polished ivory and pure gold and, in the majesty of Athena, worshippers would see the majesty of Athena’s city and people.

A committee of three oversaw the construction. One procured the workers and materials, another was in charge of architecture and engineering, and a third had the task of blending all the elements into a single artistic whole. That third man was Pheidias.

No one denies that Pheidias and his colleagues did a superb job. In a moment of vanity, however, Pheidias indulged himself and his sponsor Pericles. In a frieze depicting Athenians and Amazons in battle he carved himself as a warrior hurling a stone at the enemy and added a very fine likeness of Pericles in battle with an Amazon. Even worse, there were rumours that Pheidias invited well-born women allegedly to view the works in progress, while really making them available for Pericles to seduce.

The enemies of Pericles decided that they could harm him by taking down Pheidias. Accordingly, an employee of the sculptor was persuaded to testify that Pheidias had helped himself to the gold allocated for Athena’s garments.

This was a lot of gold, for the statue of Athena Parthenos was not intended merely as the glory of Athens, but also as the city’s reserve bank. The gold from the goddess’ robe could be removed in an emergency and to pay for ships and men – provided it was afterwards replaced. In fact, the cella – the room where the statue was housed – had one unusual feature. Unlike the same room in most temples, this one was divided in two. The second, very secure room behind the goddess was a storehouse containing gold, silver and the tribute from subject cities of the Athenian empire.

Pericles had foreseen both the risk of embezzlement and the political possibility of that accusation. Accordingly, he had ordered Pheidias to make sure that the golden clothes of the goddess could be removed and weighed if needed. This was done, and it was demonstrated that all the gold was present and accounted for. ‘Ah,’ said Pheidias’ treacherous assistant. ‘Did I say gold? I meant ivory. He embezzled some of the ivory from which the statue was made.’ The ivory was an integral part of the statue and could not be removed and weighed. Unable to prove himself innocent, Pheidias was promptly found guilty and hauled off to prison.

Pentarkes never discovered how Pheidias had got out of an Athenian prison to reach Elis in the Peloponnese, nor how he had thereafter become chief designer for the statue of Zeus. Almost certainly the hand of Pericles was behind this manoeuvre, possibly because even after the abrupt departure of Pheidias, work on the Parthenon still had to go ahead.

PHEIDIAS DISPLAYS A MODEL OF HIS EPIC STATUE OF ATHENA TO THE COMMITTEE

This meant that Pheidias was still needed. He had left in Athens a school of young artists who had taken up the challenge of finishing what their master had begun. Pentarkes remembers how every day, often at inappropriate moments, messengers from Athens would pop into the studio at Elis. There were questions about the proportions of different statues, how they should be aligned, the type of stone to be used for the pediments and thousands of other minor details. Over time, listening to the project as it developed, Pentarkes became almost as obsessed with the Parthenon as Pheidias still was. He must behold for himself this epic building and that dramatic statue of Athena that had so nearly been the ruin of his master. He was overwhelmed by curiosity as to how all the little details about which he had heard so much had turned out in reality.

Pheidias gave his student permission to go, but he did it with great reluctance. Over time he and Pentarkes had become lovers. Later, Pentarkes discovered that Pheidias had repeated his indulgences with the statue of Athena with his statue of Zeus. The youth receiving a prize at the base of the statue is Pentarkes.

Abraham Zeus Lincoln

Those interested in what the statue of Zeus might have looked like should visit one of the many pseudo-Greek temples in Washington, DC. (The early Americans knew their classics.) The Lincoln Memorial, with its friezes and Doric marble columns, houses a statue of Lincoln sitting on a throne-like chair in a conscious imitation of what Olympian Zeus might have looked like (though at just short of 6 metres high, this is half the height of the Pheidias statue of Zeus). And yes, the building in which the statue is housed is close to Pheidias’ Golden Ratio at 57.8 by 36.1 metres.

Some users of sign language believe that, rather like Pheidias, the sculptor of the Lincoln statue could not resist adding a hidden message. The fingers of the seated Lincoln allegedly read ‘A. L.’ in sign language, possibly for the benefit of the sculptor’s son who was deaf.

What to say of Athens? For a young man from a rural town, the place was overwhelming. It was exhilarating to push through the crowds in the Agora, hearing the accents of Syracuse and Persia mingling with the barbarous mutterings of near-naked Thracian slaves. In Elis, the last citizen was abed soon after sundown; in Athens, parties continued by torchlight late into the night. Street artists and acrobats performed, while philosophers debated the meaning of reality in a stoa only a few yards away.

Pentarkes believes that he became an Athenian the moment his ship nosed into the Piraeus. The port of Athens was packed with ships, from tubby little local fishing boats to hulking merchantmen and lean, shark-like triremes that glided by into the inner harbour. He could not take his eyes from the bustle and the air of purposeful chaos.

Later, he came to understand that this was not just the dominating mood of the Piraeus, but of the whole city. The people of Athens might not know where their city was going or how they were going to get there but nevertheless they were going there – faster and more stylishly than any people ever had before. It was a time when anything seemed possible.

Pentarkes rented an upper room in the tavern of Phanagora and Demetrios, near the Temple of Zeus on the road from the Piraeus to Athens. By day he wandered the Acropolis, trading on his acquaintance with Pheidias to be admitted to the cliques of sculptors, painters and stonemasons who swarmed over the site. As they worked, the most beautiful building in the world was taking shape right before his eyes. How could Pentarkes leave?

In the late afternoons and evenings, Pentarkes would stretch his allowance by helping out in the tavern downstairs. As he worked he enthused to all who would listen about the vistas and spectacles of the Parthenon. He found an all-too-ready audience in Celandine, the innkeeper’s daughter. Celandine is a beautiful yellow wild flower, and Pentarkes found the flower’s namesake beautiful also.

In time, Celandine became more formally known as ‘Celandine, wife of Pentarkes the Elean’, and Pentarkes began learning the business of tavern-keeping from his mother-in-law.

Pentarkes became an Athenian. Well, properly speaking, he became a metic. The only way to become a full Athenian citizen is to be born in Athens of Athenian parents. ‘You can no more become an Athenian than a cat can become a dog,’ the saying goes. Being a metic, however, is close enough. ‘Metic’ is short for metoikos – literally a ‘changer of dwelling-place’. Athens might guard its citizenship jealously, but it cannot do without its metics. There are tens of thousands of them – merchants, clerks, priests, sailors and, yes, tavernkeepers.

Pure-blood Athenians affect to sneer at resident foreigners, but the metics bear the sneers quite equably, since they are often considerably richer than the Athenians doing the sneering. Many Athenians are farmers, and owning agricultural property is forbidden to foreigners. If these Athenians knew how often the metics refer to them as ‘hayseeds’ behind their backs they might feel somewhat less superior.

Metics drive the complex engine of the Athenian economy, and their taxes help to power the triremes of the Athenian fleet that dominates the sea. (Metics pay an extra tax for the privilege of living in Athens.) Since Pentarkes the assistant tavernkeeper is earning considerably more in Athens than Pentarkes the minor landowner would do in Elis, he accepts his lower status without regret. He has now a healthy son and a plump, pretty daughter, both of whom will also be metics, though they have never known any home but Athens.

As a metic, Pentarkes cannot attend the Assembly (an exclusion he shares with Athenian women and slaves) and he cannot serve as a juror. He can certainly prosecute a case in the Athenian courts, and in fact recently did so when a supplier sold him several kegs of vinegar that he was passing off as wine. Pentarkes remembers the expression of the jurors as they passed around a beaker of the stuff before they awarded him a full refund – with damages.

Though he can’t attend the Assembly, Pentarkes is affected by its decrees. Metics serve in the Athenian army and train as thoroughly as any citizen. Pentarkes is wealthy enough to afford a panoply – that set of armour and weaponry which makes him a full hoplite, the top class of Athenian warrior. If Athens goes to war then, willing or not, Pentarkes will fight alongside the men who voted for it.

During the recent war with Sparta,

Reviews for 24 Hours in Ancient Athens

[jaid · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I really enjoyed reading this, following each character like an Ancient soap opera. Very fun!

[Jenna · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It's not the best creative writing but great information. Vivid recreation of life.

[Tehmina Khan · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a really great introduction to ancient Athens! I hope the author does a second book on this.

[Benjamin Cox · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Exciting and fulfilling - thanks! It was like a travelogue in ancient times.